Elisabeth Smith
Missing sister of Zacharias Smith __TOC__ Facts Full Name: Elisabeth Dymphna Smith Nicknames: Beth or Bee Date of Birth: July 16, 1980 Parents: Father, Ned (Edmund) Smith. Mother, Cliona Ollerton Smith. Siblings and Other Family of Note: Twin brother, Zacharias (Zach) Smith Whereabouts: Unknown Profession: As far as Beth’s occupation before the war- she was mainly engaged in taking odd jobs while she struggled through college. She worked as a janitor at an elementary school and a clerk at a magic shop at the time the war broke out completely, planning to attempt to pursue a military career due to the fact that she perceived it as the only way she was going to finish an education (the Smiths couldn’t afford to send either one of their children to higher education). She was one of the "Disappeared", muggles who vanished during the high point of the war, as was the twins' mother, Cliona. Appearance Elisabeth is Zach's fraternal twin and while they do resemble one another slightly, her hair is darker and she looks more like their mother than does Zach. She's homely with a large nose and oversized features- the main thing that sets Beth apart from other women is the sparkle in her lively eyes and the fact that, despite the fact of the war, she normally has a grin on her face and the general aura of being about to do something she shouldn't. She is slender, long-legged and clumsy although she's not shy about her body and as such, often manages to come off as cute or funny rather than awkward. Her face is very expressive- sometimes a little too expressive- and she's fond of using that talent to get a smile out of someone. She’s charismatic without being terribly attractive and fond of laughing. Personality Beth is oddly pragmatic, something that was either inherited from her father or by growing up with two romantics who didn't always have their feet on the ground. She's blunt when necessary and extremely commonsensical as well as clever. However, despite this pragmatism, she has a nasty habit of being able to form and hold a grudge as well as a strong stubborn streak. She's confident (sometimes a little too confident) when it comes to her intellectual abilities; something that sometimes causes conflict with others. While she's aware that she's plain, it's something that she's grown to love about herself- she likes the fact that it's her smile that attracts people, not her face- and were someone to suggest she change herself, she'd flatly refuse. All in all, she's a very confident person. Perhaps one of her greatest weaknesses is her love for practical jokes and her sense of humor. She has difficulty remaining serious in situations that other people feel call for it and often uses "gallows humour" to talk herself through a difficult experience. This is something that irritates people very quickly (especially as she's the kind of person who would joke at a funeral); however, it's a survival skill that she's developed and refuses to give up. While Beth is perceptive, it is an alert, almost edgy kind of perception. She notices things quickly- she’s not the type to sit and watch things. While she notices a great deal, she is used to being constantly challenged to think and react very quickly, making snap judgments. As a result, her perceptions are quick and unfortunately, not always changed when she has a bad impression of someone’s character. This trait isn’t one that everyone notices (or that Beth lets them notice). It’s cautious and Beth has learned that caution or fear can provoke uncertainty in those who follow you. Above all, she tries to be a good leader and to lead by example. While her quirky sense of humor and ability to carry on a grudge don’t always play into that, she tries quite hard. History Elisabeth was born in Liverpool, England to Ned and Cliona Smith. Her brother and fraternal twin, Zacharias, arrived 6 minutes before her. While the pair of them were not stereotypical twins (they never developed a twin language- too much fighting over the syntax), they were exceptionally close when they weren’t trying to hit or throw one another into a wall. Life in the Smith household growing up was one of constant pushing, taps and affectionate shoves. A generally shared family trait, that of clumsiness, caused them all to show affection by rough gestures rather than by gentle hugs or kisses. (This isn’t to say that it was in any way abusive.) Childhood was happy despite the fact that dinner three nights of every seven was macaroni and cheese and both of the older Smiths worked themselves dry at a ceramics factory where pay was low and satisfaction lower. While Beth remembers her parents as hating their jobs, she also remembers them as loving each other and as loving her and Zach. She grew up comfortable and secure in her family’s love, particularly that of her mother, with whom she was very close. She was bright and generally regarded as the smart one of the family, while Zach was considered the creative one. In actuality, there was a lot of crossover between those roles but teachers and family friends tended to categorize the twins thus. Zach’s letter from Hogwarts shook Beth to the core. It had always generally been believed that if one of the twins got a scholarship or went to higher education, it would be Beth. Zach’s interests never lay academically unless a picture was involved whereas Beth was considered a brilliant, if sometimes iconoclastic, student by teachers and peers even at a young age. For Zach to get it rather than her shocked them all. This shock was intensified when Cliona clarified exactly what kind of school it was. She had simply forgotten to mention any of the wizarding world to her children or to her husband. What they had believed for years were idiosyncrasies of their slightly batty mother were actually the results of growing up a Squib in a pureblood family. The house was racked with the fighting of Ned and Cliona as well as the constant conflicts of the twins. And in the end, Zach went to school but not after wrenching at the family dynamic, something that Beth has never quite reconciled with herself although she knows it is irrational. She felt when he left as though he was abandoning her to a world she was trying desperately to leave- the idea of growing up and having to work the same jobs her parents did growing increasingly more frightening as she got older. She felt betrayed. Her relationship with her mum also changed during this point as did hers with her dad. Whereas previously, the Smith twins had gravitated to the same-sex parent, with the combination of Zach’s blossoming homosexuality and admittance to Hogwarts, he spent more time with Cliona, leaving Ned and Beth on the outside of conversations they simply didn’t understand. At first, Beth simply refused to talk to her brother on vacations. As time went on, she began to understand that she just missed him too much since he spent most of the year away from her and gave in. At that point, she started drilling him, wanting to know every detail of wizardry and Hogwarts. If she couldn’t be a wizard, then she wanted at least to understand them. Ned followed her lead and slowly, the family began to heal again. Life was fairly simple after that until the murmurings of war began to disrupt things. First, Zach started writing her letters about the oddness of school, and then the summer after his sixth year, their father had a heart attack and died in the hospital. Beth, who had been on track to receive scholarships and go on to university, completely blew off school as the result of being unable to deal with the loss of her father and feeling inadequate about how to comfort her brother and mother. While Zach managed to return to Hogwarts, Beth’s school performance from that point on was so poor that she finally had to work 2 jobs when she did get out in the hopes of financing her university education. Life was further disrupted for her and Zach when he began seeing another wizard named Colm Hennessey. While Beth felt attracted to Colm initially, the attraction soon wore off as she saw that he was pushing Zach to make the peace movement much bigger than the joke that they had both known it was. She thought that her brother’s ego was getting out of control, not to mention that she didn’t feel Colm was right for him to begin with. The last straw was when she caught Colm snogging a member of the peace movement, and then went to Zach about it, only to have him do nothing. She was so angry for him and at him that she said several things she shouldn’t have and stormed off. While she heard about him from Cliona, she was so very angry with him that she refused to speak to him. Then, six months later, he disappeared. Before Beth or Cliona had time to worry about that, they received a knock on their door and found themselves pulled out onto the street where muggles were being thrown into lines by Death Eaters and hauled off. Zach does not know what happened to his sister or mum after that point but believes them to still be alive. Somewhere. Category: Families Category: NPC Category: Characters